English and drama

Science and Literature

Module code: Q3279
Level 5
15 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Seminar
Assessment modes: Coursework

Today, science and literature are often imagined as opposites, but what if we approached them as overlapping activities?

This module explores how literary texts have engaged with science throughout history, and how the tools of literary analysis can help us to examine science as a realm of narratives, imagery and rhetoric.

We will consider how literary modes and genres such as realism, utopia and even gothic horror developed in dialogue with scientific knowledge and practices.

We will also analyse the language and ideology of key scientific voices such as Francis Bacon and Charles Darwin.

We will ask, how does imaginative literature explore and critique the power dynamics of technocracy and Enlightenment ideals of ‘progress’?

The reading may range from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first and include such authors as Voltaire, George Eliot, H.G. Wells, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Margaret Atwood.

Module learning outcomes

• Demonstrate understanding of the two-way interchanges that are possible between literature and science as adjacent forms of representation.
• Demonstrate a critical, informed understanding of the historicity and changeability of ‘literature’ and ‘science’ as conceptual categories.
• Demonstrate an ability to analyse scientific knowledge as a body of narratives and metaphors.
• Demonstrate engagement with the range of texts studied throughout the module, and show awareness of their different historical and cultural contexts.